[WikiEN-l] Re: Quality

Mon Oct 24 18:49:16 UTC 2005

>
> This is what bothers me most about Wikipedia.
>
> Low-quality articles are tolerated on the assumption that every
> low-quality
> article is the nucleus around which a pearl will coalesce.
>
> Unfortunately, one of the things that seems to be scaling, possibly
> increasing, is the ratio between the rate at which irritating grains of
> pollutant are introduced and the rate at which nacre is being deposited.
>
> The de facto situation here seems to be that we would _rather_ have more
> article than better articles.

 I really don't know where you get these ideas from. How are low-quality
articles "tolerated"? Who would rather have more articles than better
articles? Who even thinks there is a choice between more articles and better
articles?

I thought the Guardian article was very fair and accurate. And speaks quite
> well of Wikipedia. We have consciously chosen to produce an encyclopedia
> in
> which most articles are "almost good enough."
>
> But if we want them to be better, we have got to do something to direct
> more
> nacre around fewer nuclei.

 Either would probably be sufficient, but I agree we could do more to focus
more on a core set of articles. It's one of the reasons I think we should
eliminate VFD and the like. It wastes far too much time focussing on at best
accomplishing nothing and at worst decreasing the quality of the
encyclopedia.

Quality is not one of the "five pillars of Wikipedia." And only a certain
> level of quality results from the natural operation of the Wiki process.
>
> If we want Wikipedia to be not just a "free encyclopedia," but a "high-
> quality free encyclopedia," something needs to change.

 Probably a lot needs to change, and not just "something". But that's pretty
obvious. What's less obvious is what it is that needs to change.
 Anthony